Fitness offers many benefits, from greater strength to long-term health advantages. Anyone who invests time into working out or pursuing wellness learns that finding the right mixture of activities for their tastes takes time. Anything from running to tennis can be a good choice. However, many participants in Reformer Pilates classes first arrive because they have hit a roadblock in their other fitness routines. These stall-outs (often called plateaus) are common for people who exercise regularly.
The good news is that Reformer Pilates is one of the best options for breaking through those plateaus and continuing to see results on your path to better health and a stronger body.
Here are some reasons Reformer Pilates can help you overcome plateaus in your fitness quest.
What Is a Fitness Plateau?
A fitness plateau is a common occurrence in which a person progresses in their workout goals and then sees that progress gradually stop. Plateaus can come in many forms, from failing to gain more endurance to being stuck lifting the same weights for weeks with no capacity to add more.
Plateaus are normal but more common in some fitness activities than others. Reasons behind plateaus vary, but the primary driver is a phenomenon called compensatory body adaptation. In other words, when a person does the same exercises over a long period, the body becomes used to the activity and compensates to become better at it.
Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult to see results until progress seems to stop indefinitely. Thankfully, just as some types of exercise are more prone to plateaus, others are especially good at breaking through them. Reformer Pilates is one such option.
How Reformer Pilates Can Help
Reformer Pilates contains a blend of movements suited to helping participants break through their fitness stagnation. There are a few reasons why:
Provides More Variety
Because the body adapts to a person’s regular exercise routine, they often see a slow-down in progress. Reformer Pilates can easily address this cause of a plateau because it is highly varied.
The reformer can target almost any group of muscles, so the body can never adapt to a specific focus area. This allows those in a rut to jump-start their fitness according to their needs.
Assists With Recovery
Pilates focuses on low-impact work, but that does not mean it is low-intensity! Pilates can burn many calories and really get the heart pumping. Despite this, it offers an excellent opportunity for participants to recover faster from injuries or avoid them in the first place. As a result, the body does not need to limit a person’s workout capacity to keep them safe.
Adjusts Intensity
The reformer is a highly adjustable machine, meaning that the body can never acclimate to the same routine. Ease up to allow careful muscular attention or increase resistance to push the muscles to challenges. As a form of cross-training, Pilates makes sure participants never stagnate.
Partners With Professionals
Some people may become frustrated with their declining fitness progress, not realizing they have hit a plateau. Working with an instructor to identify roadblocks is an often overlooked benefit of participating in fitness classes such as Pilates.
A participant’s instructor can provide personalized guidance on overcoming this lack of progress based on which activities the person tends to do the most frequently.
Improves Mental Health
The body is not the only element that must be challenged to overcome a plateau. A person’s mindset also matters! Pilates improves mental health, and as people enjoy this boost in attitude and inspiration, their plateaus can melt away.
Those who find favorable outcomes from their workout routines are likelier to stick to them. They are also more likely not to be discouraged when they need to change things to break through a point of minimal progress.
Break Through Your Plateau With Pilates
Plateaus are a normal part of any fitness habit and should not be viewed negatively. Instead, realize that a plateau is your body working as intended; it is adapting to the challenges you present to make sure that you will always have the strength, flexibility, or endurance necessary to complete your tasks.
However, to see even more significant growth, it is essential to keep exercises varied, and there is no better place to start than Reformer Pilates! Contact RTR Pilates to sign up for a beginner class and learn why the variability and adaptability that comes with using a reformer can break through your plateau.
